1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to an improved adjustable speed bag apparatus that reduces unwanted vibration during use.
2. Prior Art
In the sport of boxing, speed bags (or “striking bags” as they are often referred to in Europe) are routinely used in training to improve a boxer's hand speed, timing and reaction to punches. Highly skilled boxers can strike a speed bag with very rapid successions of punches and with ferocious intensity. Mechanisms from which to suspend a speed bag are varied, but usually include a ring connected to a swivel from which the bag is suspended to allow the bag to freely swing and rotate when punched. The swivel is often attached to the underside of a platform made of wood. When the bag is sufficiently punched, it swings upwardly until it is stopped by slamming into the underside of the platform, then bouncing off of it and returning toward the boxer to be hit again or to swing through and collide again with the another area of the platform. Violent punches and impact of a speed bag onto the platform, however, can cause the speed bag apparatus to vibrate. Fast and heavy work on a speed bag can produce unwanted vibration that may result in aberrant motion of the bag and undesirable disturbance of the boxer's timing trying to hit it.
The problem of vibration during use of a speed bag apparatus is not new. For example, in the prior art, one of the express objects of U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,364 to Boring, was “to provide an apparatus for supporting a striking bag that is durable and able to withstand vibration and impact.” However, the '364 patent discloses a cumbersome vertically-adjustable pair of platform support brackets extending from the upper portion of an inner slideable assembly within a wall-mounted stationary frame. Adjusting the height of the platform requires loosening a pair of hand knobs to allow movement of the inner assembly from the fixed wall-mounted frame. Once loosened, the inner assembly may be physically raised or lowered with its attached brackets and platform into a desired ratchet tab position and, to secure its position, the knobs are retightened. While the knobs, when tightened, may secure the bottom of the slideable assembly to the wall-mounted frame, the security of the upper portion of the slideable assembly appears to rely on the interaction of the metal-on-metal ratchet tabs. It can thus be envisioned that when in use the device would be noisy and transmit vibration throughout the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,320 to Ray discloses a hanging bag apparatus having a vertical main frame unit and a pair of vertical, symmetrical, cylindrically-shaped tubes secured to three horizontally extending wall mounting brackets. According to the '320 patent, the hanging target is suspended from a striking bag platform attached to a movable striking bag carriage assembly that moves along the outside of the vertical tubes. The entire carriage assembly rides up and down along the tubes on four nylon roller bearing assemblies and is counterbalanced with two 40 pound weights which are enclosed within the tubes and are supported by rollers and cables. Securement of the carriage assembly to the pair of tubes appears to depend upon four sets of U-shaped rods each surrounded by a grouping of nylon roller bearings, the upper pair of bearings being sufficiently loose to permit travel of the carriage relative to the tubes when the lower pair is loosened. Fixing the desired position of the carriage is relegated to a pair of bearing pads at the bottom of the carriage assembly actuated by turnable hand knobs while the upper bearing surfaces only slightly engage the peripheral edges of the tubes. [Col. 6, ins. 60-67] Nylon, of course, is somewhat malleable as a material and is subject to wear which can result in additional insecurity of the upper portion of the carriage and increase the tendency of the entire carriage and platform to vibrate during use. The material of the bearing pads may also be subject to wear and the cylindrical tubes may be deformed by them.
Vibration of the device disclosed in the '320 patent was apparently a drawback. In a continuation-in-part of the '320 patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,639 to Ray, a similar speed bag support apparatus is disclosed. According to the '639 patent, however, the weights include a cap or plastic coating at their ends to reduce noise and vibration from inside the cylindrical tubes. [Col. 6, Ins. 37-43] While complementary shapes of the lower carriage bearing pads are disclosed, both Ray patents continue to suffer from the same loosely-contacting nylon upper roller bearing surfaces, wearable bearing pads, and deformable character of the vertical tubes. [Col, 2, Ins, 3-5; Col. 7, Ins, 15-29]
U.S. Pat. No. 6,623,408 to Kyle discloses a wall-mountable speed bag apparatus having a retractable platform for storing the device like a Murphy bed when not in use. When use is desired the speed bag platform is lowered by a pair of cables which may be hand cranked from about an axle. Once lowered, there appears to be no mechanism to prevent the platform from moving or vibrating in at least the return direction during use.
In sum, all the referenced prior art speed bag apparatuses suffer from being susceptible to unwanted vibration during use.